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“Sir Godfrey’s father was dealing in stolen Nazi treasure?”
“Hot news flash, he and his buddies were doing some of the stealing, but yes, they took jewelry, art, and anything they could get their greedy little hands on to make themselves richer.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed—everything about him saying ‘defeated.’ He ran his hands through his hair.
“This is going to be so much more difficult than I thought,” he said.
“What is going to be ‘difficult?’ I get it. You don’t think I’m good enough as I am, so you want to change me. I don’t want to change. So, it isn’t ‘difficult,’ it’s impossible. Why don’t you just close your eyes for a minute, I’ll go through the window, down the wall, and disappear. Could you take care of Mia? You’re right; it’s probably getting too dangerous for her. Tell them I blackmailed her into helping me.”
“Did you?” he said, looking up at her with a stark expression.
“Of course, not. What kind of bitch do you think I am?”
He stood up and took her hand, trying to draw her back to him. “I don’t think you’re a bitch at all. I said ‘difficult,’ not ‘impossible,’ and you’re not going anywhere.”
“Well, I’m sure as hell not staying here with you.”
“My big dick really wishes you’d stop saying that. It’s getting very concerned that you might actually mean what you say, and it was really, really looking forward to getting back up inside you.”
She couldn’t help but smile at him. He had a way of being as completely inappropriate as she was. No, he wasn’t inappropriate, he could act it on occasion when it suited him. But Ryland Fletcher was a straight arrow. He had a clearly defined sense of right and wrong and lived in a world where black was black and white was white. Her entire life had been spent in a morally gray area.
“Well, I’m afraid your dick is going to have to live with disappointment.” She let go and stepped back. “Seriously, this thing—whatever it is—will never work between us.”
“It will if we want it to. And I, for one, want it to—perhaps more than anything else I’ve ever wanted. Let’s go to bed, baby. We’re both tired and wrung out. It’s been a long night. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I would really like to go to bed with you. I’d like nothing better than to fuck you, go to sleep, and wake up in a world where we could be together. But I’m too much of a realist. We can’t.”
“We can. I can and will make a world where we can be together. I could have gone to the Yard with everything my team and I have on you, but I haven’t. The last thing I want is to see you or Mia get arrested. It’s just going to take a little more negotiating than I thought, but that isn’t to say I won’t get it done.”
She shook her head. “You just don’t get it. I don’t want you to get anything done, not if it means I have to walk away from everything I’ve worked for.”
“It isn’t everything. It’s a burden your grandfather saddled you with.”
Claire’s hand cracked across his cheek before the thought to slap him had even fully formed in her mind. “Don’t you ever talk about Poppi that way. He gave up everything to take care of me. He worked for a family that he loathed.”
She thought he’d get angry, maybe even lash out at her verbally, but he didn’t. Instead, he folded her in his arms, and just held her.
“I think your grandfather was an extraordinary man, and I wish he was around to help me put an end to this vendetta you seem committed to, but he isn’t. I think it must have cost him to walk away from something he must have believed in every bit as deeply as you do and work for people he despised to give you a better life. But he saw the greater good—keeping his granddaughter safe. I think he would want me to do the same. And to do that, you have to say enough is enough. I also think if he thought this could get you killed, he would have put a stop to it. It wasn’t me they were after tonight; it was you, and Mia, to a lesser extent.”
“You don’t know that,” she said, her cheek pressed hard to his chest.
Placing his crooked finger under her chin, he tilted her head back. “But I do, and so do you. Come to bed, Claire. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
He fell back onto the bed, bringing her with him. She struggled only for a moment, but her heart wasn’t in it. Every scrap of her soul wanted to be with this man—wanted to believe they could be together forever, but she didn’t. Too much had gone before them and created an insurmountable divide between who they were, but tonight, that didn’t matter.
Someone had tried to kill her. Mia would have just been collateral damage. She’d known for a while she would need to find a way to protect Mia, and now she had one. The Grenadine Necklace was lost to her and those to whom it truly belonged. She knew that now. She could never return to her beloved millhouse. She knew she could trust Fletch to deal with all of it—the stolen jewelry, her horses, the paintings she’d been working on, Mia. It was time for Claire Mitchell to disappear and lay low for a while. Then she could re-emerge and strike at those who had cost so many everything they had.
Claire knew she should send him away or sneak out when he wasn’t paying attention. She could ply him with sex, make him believe he could have what he wanted and then just slip away like the proverbial thief in the night. But she wanted him one last time. There would never be another Fletch—someone who challenged her, wanted the best for her and could make her body and soul come alive in a way it never had and wouldn’t do again. The bittersweet knowledge of what had to be clutched at her heart. She would give herself this final time and then mourn his loss for the rest of her days.
Somehow, during her musings, he had stripped them both naked and had positioned her on her back as he moved down her body, spreading her thighs to expose her sex as he lowered his head to her, kissing and licking her clit and her labia. Claire moaned and gave herself to him this one last time.
Her body was soft and yielding and her pussy slick and ready for him. He latched onto her with his mouth, feasting on her honey as he plunged his tongue inside her over and over, lapping up all she could give him. Her body bowed as she came, gasping and shaking as she did.
“You are so fucking beautiful. I can make this right. Tell me you believe me.”
“I believe you.” She didn’t, but he didn’t need to know that.
He stretched down, lowering his body to hers and making a place for himself between her legs. His hands slid under her ass, and he held her as he watched her intently. “Say it again,” he said as he slid his hard length inside her, pressing deep so they were joined together.
